Baseball America released their annual list of the top 100 prospects in baseball today, which you can find here: 1-20, 21-40, 41-60, 61-80, 81-100. Jesus Montero was ranked as the third best prospect in the game, trailing only Bryce Harper and Mike Trout. Domonic Brown and Julio Teheran round out the top five. Gary Sanchez came in at number 30, Manny Banuelos number 41, Dellin Betances number 43, and Andrew Brackman at number 78. Austin Romine snuck in as number 98. I’m pleasantly surprised that Romine made the cut, and that’s really quite a showing for the Yankees. Damn impressive.

This is only the second time in the 21-year history of BA’s top 100 that the Yankees have had six guys appear on the list. The other came back was 1999, with Nick Johnson (18), Ryan Bradley (25), Alfonso Soriano (39), Ricky Ledee (70), Jackson Melian (72), and Drew Henson (100). Only three of those guys made the top 50, though.

If you’re reading this site, then you’re well aware that Dellin Betances is a local kid, born and raised in Manhattan and drafted out of high school in Brooklyn. It wasn’t until age ten that he turned to baseball, when a little encouragement from David Wells pushed him in the right direction. As Andrew Marchand explains, Betances was in the bleachers for Boomer’s perfect game in 1998, which motivated him to abandon basketball for the mound. The rest, as they say, is history.

The Yankees drafted Betances in the eighth round back in 2006, buying him away from a powerhouse program at Vanderbilt with a cool million bucks. Brian Cashman wanted to take him in the third round, but scouting director Damon Oppenheimer told him to wait and their patience paid off. Make sure you give Marchand’s article a click, it’s a great read.

Kevin Goldstein posted his list of the top eleven Yankees prospects today (BP subs. req’d), ranking the quartet of Jesus Montero, Manny Banuelos, Gary Sanchez, and Dellin Betances as five star prospects. That comes at the cost of zero four star prospects, but who cares. Eduardo Nunez, Austin Romine, and Andrew Brackman are among those that check in at three stars. “[No] system in baseball took a bigger step forward last year,” said KG. “The Yankees system had [has?] plenty of talent that can help soon, plenty of talent to dream on at the lower levels, and plenty of pitching that will serve them well in the trade market. This is easily one of the better farm systems in the game.”

The post also includes the team’s top ten talents under the age of 25, and Montero tops that list as will. Phil Hughes is right behind him at number two, and Joba Chamberlain is sixth. David Robertson barely made the age cut-off (by eight days), but fell just short of the list. Goldstein said Joba was tough to rank, unsurprisingly, and would accept an argument for placing anywhere from third throughout ninth. When two established big leaguers and four five star prospects fill the top six spots of your 25-and-under list, you’ve got something good going on.

As for the sleeper KG’s been teasing on Twitter the last few days, that would be Steve Evarts, who the Yankees signed as a minor league free agent earlier this offseason. “A supplemental first-round pick in 2006, Evarts hasn’t played organized ball since 2008 due to injuries and off-field issues,” added Goldstein. “For all that, he’s still just 23, and has the kind of fastball command that the Yankees look for. Again, this is crazy deep as selections go, but there just might be something there.”

Frankie Piliere of AOL Fanhouse posted his list of the top 100 prospects today, with Jesus Montero coming in at number four behind only Mike Trout, Julio Teheran, and Eric Hosmer. “Will he be a good defensive catcher? No,” said Piliere, “but he has shown enough improvement to be an adequate defender. That combined with a potentially special bat make for an impressive total package.” Piliere has always been one of the few defenders of Montero’s defense, not that he thinks he’ll great behind the plate, but playable.

Manny Banuelos came at number 13 (“picked up a couple ticks on his fastball and lives at 93-95 now”), Gary Sanchez number 34 (“Sanchez’s bat rivals Montero’s at the same age and he looks like he’ll be a better defender”), and Dellin Betances at number 44 (“the towering right-hander has all the components you look for in a frontline starter”). Andrew Brackman makes the back half of the list at number 60. Very nice showing for the Yankees, especially since four of their five guys cracked the top 50.

For a young baseball player, nothing can be worse than the spectre of expectations. Ask Rocco Badelli, now retired at 29 and long called the next Joe DiMaggio, how he feels about the label now. Ask every relief pitcher who gets tagged as the next Mariano. Ask young sluggers about the pressures of Albert Pujols or Miguel Cabrera comparisons.

Meanwhile, for those kids who come of age as a member of the Yankees, the expectations are even greater. Win today, win tomorrow, win yesterday. There’s no time for growth, development, mistakes or adjustments. If you can’t cut it from the get-go, you’re not tough enough. I shudder to think where Robinson Cano would be had he hit .229 instead of .289 over his first 50 games.

A few years ago, as Mike mentioned in tonight’s Open Thread, we hitched our wagon to Ian Kennedy, Joba Chamberlain and Phil Hughes. The Yanks had three top arms they had selected in the early rounds of the amateur draft, and these kids were working their way successfully through the organization when Johan Santana became available. The Twins wanted Kennedy and Hughes plus others, and we believed it would be a mistake to include two of them in a deal with Minnesota.

At the time, we didn’t expect all three of them to be top-flight Major League starters. It rarely works that way with young arms. But we expected them to be useful Major Leaguers or Major League pieces in the right deal, and that’s what happened. Phil Hughes has emerged as a legitimate middle-of-the-rotation arm; Joba Chamberlain is working himself back from a shoulder injury more serious than originally thought; and Kennedy has found success in the NL after helping net the Yanks Curtis Granderson. My personal views on Joba’s role notwithstanding, that’s a great tale of pitcher development.

Now we have our second generation of the Big Three, and they’re getting a lot of attention early on. We call the top arms in the Yanks’ rotation the Killer B’s. They are, after all, the next generation of hyped — or overhyped — pitchers. Andrew Brackman, 25, Dellin Betances, 22, and Manny Banuelos, 19, are names regular RAB readers know well and names with which Yankee fans will soon become familiar. Already, reporters are getting itchy.

With the Yankees’ rotation heavy with question marks and thin with top-flight starters, the kids are under the microscope. Enter Joel Sherman. In his blog post today, Sherman talks about other Yankees who unexpectedly forced themselves into the picture. Alfonso Soriano’s killer Spring Training in 2001 made the Yanks play him. Robinson Cano came up ahead of schedule when Tony Womack just couldn’t cut it. Phil Hughes was pressed into service when the Yanks’ thin rotation started to fall apart. Can history repeat itself with one of the Killer B’s?

Sherman almost answers his own question in the negative. Brian Cashman told The Post that these kids — the potential future — won’t be rushed. “They shouldn’t be caught up in our major league problems,” he said. But Sherman, who may be speculating or may be doing more than reading tea leaves, can’t help but wonder:

No matter how short the rotation might be, it is not up to two inexperienced pitchers to solve the mess caused by Cliff Lee’s rejection and Andy Pettitte’s continued defection. Banuelos and Betances have each made three career starts at Double-A, which is the highest level they have attained. Both had injuries last year that severely restricted their workload. So you can expect that the Yankees will institute an innings cap not much above 130 — if that high — this season. With that the case, it would be hard to begin or end the year with either Banuelos or Betances in the rotation. In addition, Cashman stressed that Banuelos is 19 (he turns 20 next month).

For now, Banuelos and Betances are ticketed for Double-A. But keep this in mind: Many members of the Yankees organization feel breaking young pitchers in via the bullpen is worthwhile, so it is possible that the last 20 or 30 innings of their work could be out of the major league pen. Also, don’t forget, Soriano was not supposed to be with the Yankees in 2001 nor was Hughes supposed to be with the team in 2007. So whatever the rules are in the chill of February, remember they are always subject to rewrite.

I don’t discount Sherman’s sourcing. He’s very well connected within the upper reaches of the Yanks’ braintrust. But if the recent past is any indication, the Yanks won’t rush prized arms. Banuelos and Betances have combined for 30 AA innings. Brackman threw 80 at that level and is very much a work in progress, and the Yanks like to let their works in progress arrive when ready. If any player is going to play themselves onto the Yanks during Spring Training, it will be Jesus Montero and not Brackman, Banuelos or Betances.

So we’ll wait out this second generation of the Big Three. We’ll give them their innings at AA and AAA, and we’ll see their names pop up in trade rumors all season. If they can approximate the success of the first Big League — a starter, a reliever and a trade chip — the Yankees can pat themselves on the back for a job well done. The road to that end is long yet, and there is no need to rush.

Keith Law’s top 100 prospects list came out today (1-25, 26-50, 51-75, 76-100), and unsurprisingly the Yankees are well represented (I believe all but the top 25 are Insider only). Jesus Montero comes in at number four, trailing only Mike Trout, Bryce Harper, and Domonic Brown. “[Montero’s] going to hit. And by that, I mean he’s going to hit for average, get on base and have huge power — the type of offensive profile that plays anywhere on the field and in the lineup,” said KLaw, though he adds the obvious caveat about his defense. “Montero could solve the Yankees’ DH problem for the next 10 years if they commit to it, a move they are unlikely to ever regret.”

Manny Banuelos wasn’t too far behind Montero at number 12, and according to KLaw he’s the fourth best pitching prospect in baseball behind Julio Teheran, Shelby Miller, and Zach Britton. “[He’s] a 19-year-old on the cusp of the majors with a three-pitch mix where all three pitches will at least flash above-average … he’s just a few refinements away from being able to help the big league club.” Law is probably the high man on Banuelos, I was surprised to see him ranked so far up there. Gary Sanchez is 68th (“youth and distance from the majors are the only things keeping him out of the top echelon of this list”), Dellin Betances is 73rd (“[there’s] No. 1 starter potential here, but the probability isn’t there yet”), and Andrew Brackman makes five Yankee farmhands at number 88 (“[he] may be a bullpen guy, but at least now that’s his floor”).

Austin Romine make Law’s list of ten prospects that just missed the top 100, and he notes that Romine “can throw and hit for power, but has struggled with basic receiving tasks every time I’ve seen him in the past six months.” His list of each organization’s top ten prospects came out as well, and the Yankee list is pretty standard with one exception: he’s got Graham Stoneburner all that way at number seven. Hooray for a strong farm system.

Jamie asks: First I’ll start off by saying I’m confident that the Yanks will sign or trade for another SP prior to Spring Training and this question becomes moot. However, if they don’t there’s been talk of using kids to fill the rotation out with names like Betances and Banuelos thrown out there. My question is, how often have teams’ top pitching prospects skipped AAA entirely and have there been many pitchers that have been successful in doing so? What’s the best/worst case scenario we could see out of ManBan or Dellin if either were the 5th starter?

I did some digging around and it turns out that quite a few top pitching prospects skipped the Triple-A level before jumping into the big leagues, including current Yankee ace CC Sabathia. He made ten High-A starts in 2000 before being promoted at midseason and making another 17 starts with Double-A, and the next year he made the Indians’ rotation as a 20-year-old right out of Spring Training. His lone career Triple-A start was a rehab outing in 2006. A.J. Burnett made the jump from Double-A to the majors in 1999, but he went back to the minors to start the 2000 season before resurfacing in June. He made all of one Triple-A start before sticking in the show.

Some of the other notable big leaguers that skipped Triple-A all together: Justin Verlander (just 20 minor league starts total, seven in Double-A), Mat Latos (nine Double-A starts), Clayton Kershaw (16 Double-A starts), Josh Beckett (13 Double-A starts), Scott Kazmir (eight Double-A starts), and former Yankee first round pick Eric Milton (14 Double-A starts). Tim Lincecum (five), Roy Oswalt (five), and Cole Hamels (three) all made a very limited number of Triple-A starts before sticking in the big leagues. The Tigers were aggressive with Verlander but he was a college draft pick; Rick Porcello was a high school kid that famously jumped from High-A to the big leagues in 2009. Half-a-decade earlier, the Tigers did the exact same thing with Jeremy Bonderman. Yeah, Detroit likes to be aggressive with their prospects. Johan Santana jumped from High-A to the big leagues as well, but he was a Rule 5 Draft pick, so his situation was a little different. I’m certain there are more examples out there, but these are just a few.

As for Manny Banuelos and Dellin Betances, we have to remember that if either guy started the 2011 season in the Yankees rotation, they wouldn’t be just skipping Triple-A, they’d essentially be skipping Double-A as well. Banuelos is still just 19 years old, and he has a total of three starts and 15.1 Double-A innings to his credit. Betances is older in age (22) but not in Double-A experience, his three starts at the level produced a total of 14.1 innings. Combined, the pair have faced 119 batters above the Single-A level. Throwing them to the AL East wolves with that little upper level experience is just asking for trouble. The chances of success are probably like, 5%, and the worst case scenario involves 50 or so innings with a 6+ ERA and a trip back to the minors with confidence at an all-time low.

Thankfully the Yankees have some arms in Triple-A they could turn to first. Hector Noesi and Andrew Brackman are already on the 40-man, and David Phelps can be added without a problem. We can even add Adam Warren to that mix as well. Those four can and should be given a rotation spot before turning to Banuelos or Betances. The time will come for those two, but 2011 is too soon.